Weather Service confirms 4 tornadoes touched down in Thursday storms

Beth LeBlanc and Leonard N. Fleming The Detroit News Published 7:56 PM EDT Mar 15, 2019 Marc Stine was feeding his cows on Thursday in the central Michigan village of Vernon when he saw a funnel cloud on the southern horizon. “It was coming over the trees there,” Stine said Friday morning, pointing across the street. “I didn’t feel right about it.” He dropped what he was doing and made a quick retreat. When he returned, the cherry red barn he rents on Garrison was demolished and 1,000 bales of hay lay atop his three cows. He thought the cows were goners, but discovered they’d laid down in what amounted to crawl space beneath the hay. Safe and sound. “There had to be 30 people (helping) out here last night,” Stine said. “We got them out.” Four tornadoes touched down as strong storms swept the state Thursday, according to the National Weather Service. Two in Shiawassee County left a trail of destruction that resulted in damage to at least 60 structures, officials said Friday. No one was injured. The weaker of the two tornadoes was reported as EF-0; touched down for seven minutes at 6:47 p.m. Thursday and created a path of damage 6.4 miles long and 100 yards wide from near Bennington to about two miles southwest of Corunna. It struck the intersection of Bennington Greens and Innsbrook drives, where it snapped and uprooted trees and hit a farm, the National Weather Service said, lifting the roof off of an outbuilding. Officials… [Read full story]